Boxing: Flintoff fight has celebrity appeal

ANDREW ‘Freddie’ Flintoff, the former England cricket star, stepped into the ring last weekend for his much-hyped fight.

ANDREW ‘Freddie’ Flintoff, the former England cricket star, stepped into the ring last weekend for his much-hyped fight.

This was not just his first pro fight, but his first contest of any sort, and so was against the normal protocol for a boxer to be accepted into the paid ranks by the British Boxing Board of Control.

Usually, a boxer has some sort of amateur background in the sport before being granted a boxing licence by the board or maybe previous involvement in mixed martial arts or kickboxing.

On this occasion, however, with Flintoff a number of factors applied.

He was well-schooled by Shane and Barry McGuigan – the latter the former world featherweight champion and top media pundit – and was backed by a big support team ahead of his Manchester fight with the American novice Richard Dawson.

Flintoff, being an elite sportsman for so many years, worked his celebrity in his favour in getting a licence so quickly, yet the fact he is now 34 suggests to me that this was more a publicity event than a serious attempt to become a professional boxer.

TV broadcasters Sky documented the whole build-up and aftermath of the event (something rarely – if ever – seen with a boxer making his pro debut) and there is no doubt the presence of a national sporting icon in the ring created enough interest to go ahead with the project.

So is this type of thing bad for the sport and could we see other famous sportsmen gloving up in the future?

What the Flintoff story tells us is that it does indeed raise the profile of boxing and generate income at the box office.

Perhaps that is not a bad thing, especially if a sportsman takes up boxing for reasons other than making it a full-time career, is well-taught, embarks on a quality training programme and is well-matched at the start.

I was looking at the figures of the last show I promoted back in March as part of the St David’s Day celebrations. We lost money and that was mainly due to gate receipts not being enough to sustain the cost of the event.

So what if I were to stage another event in the new year and contacted former Welsh rugby or football internationals to take part in the show? I’m pretty sure our box office takings would be up.

Last week Steve Simms and Tony Borg staged a quality show in Newport and I did a quick breakdown of what it would have cost them to stage the event against what the takings might have been.

The conclusion was that they would be lucky to break even after putting in so many hours training the boxers and setting up the show.

I spoke to Simms who told me if it hadn’t have been for souvenir programme sales on the night, they wouldn’t have broken even.

Simms staged a great show but no Welsh TV support was given, yet I can imagine, say for example if Martyn or Shane Williams had shown an interest in training up to box, then the Welsh channels would have fallen over themselves to show it.

As far as Flintoff was concerned, he won the four-round fight 39-38 on points despite being sent to the canvas by a Dawson left hook in the second round.

That was a 10-8 round for Dawson so Flintoff had to win the other three rounds. Personally, I think it was close and it could have gone either way, but if I was judging on the night I would have gone for Flintoff .

In truth, though, it was a scrappy fight between two novices that had it been on the undercard of any other show, it would not have attracted the interest of boxing fans.

The fact 6,000 people turned up at the Manchester Arena shows the power of celebrity I guess, but you have to ask is this the way forward for the sport?

I suspect not, but I will stay open-minded and wish Flintoff the best if he decides to fight again.

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